The LA Times is running a piece that suggests Steve Jobs is interested in buying Univeral Music Group from Vivendi.
The inner workings of the music industry are byzantine and appear to be quite inefficient (a few years ago two of us tried to work out the information and money flow through one of the majors from published information and came to the conclusion that a huge amount of money was being wasted). At the same time all of the majors seem focused on protecting what seems to be an outdated business model by focusing on a few symptoms of some much larger problems.
The size of the music industry is small enough and the prices are sufficiently depressed that it is much easier for someone to buy a company and re-create it. We will probably see two or three of the majors change hands this year. The business is so outdated that having one move to an active non-insider could revolutionize the entire industry.
I don't think Apple would be the place to put something like this, but Jobs might be able to move the whole industry if he was to create another company (giving him Apple, Pixar and a music company).
Jobs or someone else, change will happen.
8:26:23 AM 
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